Hull Number: DD-56
Launch Date: 08/22/2014
Commissioned Date: 08/14/2015
Decommissioned Date: 06/16/2022
Call Sign: NEGN
Other Designations: USCG(CG-5)
Namesake: JOHN ERICSSON
JOHN ERICSSON
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, June 2019
John Ericsson was born in Långban, Värmland, in the Kingdom of Sweden, on 31 July 1803. Ericsson’s father was a local mine inspector and his mother was a well-educated daughter of a previous inspector. They mentored John and his brother Nils to become accomplished engineers. After enjoying a childhood where he exhibited prodigious talents in drawing, surveying and mechanics, young John attended the engineering school in Tåtorp as a cadet of the Swedish Navy Mechanical Corps, where he performed work in leveling and surveying for the expansive Göta Canal, intended to connect the Baltic Sea with the North Atlantic. Before his 18th birthday, 600 troops worked on projects under his supervision and teachers regarded him as a prodigy.
In 1820, Ericsson enlisted in the Swedish Army as a lieutenant in the northern province of Jämtland. Army service allowed him to practice the skills he learned as a boy, such as cartography, and acquire new ones, such as those of an artillery draughtsman. Ericsson also used the time to perform experiments on new inventions, foremost of which was his flame-motor that converted hot air, rather than steam, from thermal to mechanical energy. The concept featured prominently in many of Ericsson’s later projects.
Ericsson’s inventions and his mastery of cartography impressed superiors including the Swedish monarch. In 1826, Ericsson took leave of the Swedish Army and traveled to England in hopes of finding success with his flame motor. Initially, it failed to impress his British counterparts, but the imaginative Ericsson responded by churning out new patents.
Ericsson suffered another setback when he furnished innovative new boilers to polar explorer John Ross for his 1829 expedition. Ross attempted to locate the Northwest Passage in the auxiliary steam ship Victory but due in part to the failure of the vessel’s steam propulsion his expedition became stranded. After returning from the expedition, Ross blamed its failure on engineers including Ericsson. In Ross’s telling, the Swede provided him inferior quality boilers. Ericsson, never one to accept blame that he felt unwarranted, countered that Ross held the arctic destination of his expedition secret until too late. The inventor contended that he could have compensated for the extreme cold of the polar region with earlier notice.
In the late 1820s Ericsson partnered with English inventor John Brainwaithe to patent several innovative machines. In 1829 they debuted a steam-powered fire engine. The machine was capable of shooting two tons of water per minute to the top of the highest building in London and would not freeze in cold temperatures. The invention’s attractive ability to deliver large quantities of water to douse flames also proved to be its weakness. Early Nineteenth Century cities had little access to the plentiful water supplies required for such an engine. He attempted to use his earliest invention concept, a hot air powered water pump, to alleviate chronic flooding in Cornish mines. The project became another costly failure for the Swede. Despite those setbacks, he retained the support of his countrymen and King Karl Gustav XIV extended his leave and promoted him to captain.
In 1829 the directors of the Manchester-Liverpool Railroad sought to find a steam engine to run on their proposed railway. They offered a prize of £500 to the best locomotive. Ericsson and Brainwaithe provided an entry aptly named The Novelty. The locomotive’s engine and boilers were more efficient than her contemporaries and she was the only locomotive entered in the competition to carry her own fuel and water. The test of The Novelty came at the Rainhill Trials where she competed against four other locomotives. Spectators 10,000 strong, from the British scientific elite to the English public turned out to witness the spectacle. The Novelty early established itself as the fan favorite, matching beautiful workmanship with a then lightning fast speed of 28 mph. In later trials, however, she proved prone to break downs. At the end of eight days of trials the directors awarded the prize to George Stephenson’s more reliable entry The Rocket. Stephenson won the £500 and more importantly, renown as the father of the locomotive.
While those setbacks and failures did not break Ericsson’s creativity and drive, they did put him deep into debt. By 1832, he owed £15,000 to creditors, a considerable fortune at the time. While confined to debtor’s prison on two instances starting in 1832, Ericsson continued brainstorming and drawing while in confinement. He further investigated the concept that he earlier explored with the flame engine. When free of prison in 1833, he released an improved model named the caloric engine. While built on the same principles he added improvements such as a heat sink or “economizer” to improve efficiency.
While imprisoned he also contemplated problems of steamship propulsion. Early steamships were propelled by side wheels which had the disadvantage of being large, unwieldy, fuel inefficient, and susceptible to damage. Ericsson’s answer was to locate the propulsion aft and below the waterline to address many of these issues. His first propulsion method was based on the movement of duck’s feet, with paddles driven back and forth by a steam driven cylinder. He sunk $2,000.00 to create a prototype tug boat with this style of propulsion for a group of interested sponsors. The investors withdrew their support when the vessel could not pull the weight specified in the contract, leaving Ericsson further in debt. He next dreamed up a working double propeller in a spiral layout but filed a patent too late and in 1836 shared credit with the inventor of a similar device.
Again down on his luck, Ericsson entered into a partnership with U.S. inventor and statesman Francis Ogden, then serving as U.S .Consul in Liverpool, England. Ogden supported Ericsson’s experiments with naval propulsion both financially and with technical insight, resulting in the screw-powered tug Francis G. Ogden which the Swede demonstrated for the British Lords of the Admiralty on the Thames in May 1837. Although the vessel performed well and did not suffer any difficulties the Admiralty rejected her, handing Ericsson yet another setback. The Admiralty could not conceive of a method to steer a ship if the propeller was installed aft. The vessel succeeded, however, in impressing Capt. Robert Stockton, U.S. Navy, who ordered a model for himself.
Stockton – a proponent of modernizing the U.S. Navy — convinced Ericsson to make the trans-Atlantic voyage to the United States, where he hoped Ericsson’s genius would convince Congress of the merits of screw propelled warships. Ericsson arrived in November 1839 and settled in New York. The U.S. Navy proved unready for a screw powered vessel but the persistent Ericsson found work building shipborne machinery at the Phoenix foundry in New York, where he worked with Henry Delamater who would remain a backer and a partner throughout the remainder of his life. The foundry manufactured screw-driven private vessels and steam fire engines based on Ericsson’s designs while providing the Swede an outlet for his creativity.
After the ascension of John Tyler to the Presidency in 1841 the politically connected Capt. Stockton convinced government officials of the merits of building a revolutionary warship. He enlisted Ericsson’s help and the wooden screw sloop Princeton — the first screw steamship in the U.S. Navy — was launched two years later. The sloop boasted an Ericsson-designed engine that was small and light enough to perform completely below the waterline. Ericsson also designed a six-bladed propeller, a telescoping smoke stack, and the ship’s main guns.
The guns were two massive 12-inch smoothbores. Ericsson fabricated the first of these guns, later named Oregon, while living in England and transported it across the Atlantic. He fitted the breech with red hot hoops for greater strength to withstand a stronger charge. Against the Swede’s wishes, Stockton used Ericsson’s plans to build the second gun named Peacemaker. The American did not sufficiently understand the inventor’s construction methods and used inferior materials. His most important oversight was the lack of fortifying hoops around the breech. He nonetheless installed Peacemaker on the vessel despite its deficiencies.
Americans initially viewed Princeton with pride as a technological marvel. She defeated a British Paddle-wheel steamer Great Western in a race on New York’s East River. Stockton left Ericsson in New York and introduced the vessel to the Washington political elite. On 28 February 1844, President Tyler, members of his cabinet, congressmen and a cross section of Washington high society met on board the sloop for a gala event. Stockton fired Peacemaker twice, and at the special request of the Secretary of the Navy set her off one last time.
The gun burst near the breech, however, scattering fragments among the officials present on deck. The explosion killed six including the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Navy, two congressmen, the Chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Construction and an enslaved servant of the President. Stockton was among the many wounded. While Stockton’s ties to President Tyler helped him escape blameless from the “Princeton Disaster,” he heaped blame on Ericsson, who refused to attend inquiries into the incident and therefore proved unable to counter his former associate’s accusations. Furthermore, even though the concept of the screw propelled warship and Ericsson’s many inventions proved to be a success, Congress never paid him for Princeton or refunded his expenses. The Princeton disaster and its aftermath left Ericsson distrustful of the Navy.
In 1849, Ericsson proudly became an American citizen but his mind remained back with one of his old world pursuits, the caloric engine. The following year he created a shipborne engine that used heat, rather than steam, for propulsion. Ericsson saw caloric power as a cleaner, safer, and more efficient means of propulsion than steam. In 1852, he launched Ericsson as the first vessel running on such power to much fanfare. Despite initial enthusiasm, the vessel ran only eight knots, significantly slower than similar sized steamships. In addition, Ericsson foundered in a storm, continuing the terrible luck of her namesake. While seen as a feat of mechanical genius by contemporaries, caloric energy proved to lack the practical utility of steam on larger scales. Ericsson found success beginning in 1857 by selling smaller versions of his engine useful for various agricultural, industrial, and maritime purposes.
Following the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the numerically superior U.S. Navy implemented a blockade of the southern states intending to cut them off from foreign trade and assistance. The Confederacy sought to challenge the overwhelming blockade by building ironclad warships to neutralize the Federal advantage. In June 1861, the Confederacy began construction of an ironclad on the hulk of the scuttled screw frigate Merrimack.
Congress was initially reluctant to pursue armored vessels but formed a committee to investigate the possibility in July 1861. When Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles invited proposals in August, Ericsson had already completed his entry. The inventor based his proposal on earlier plans for a “cupola vessel” that he unilaterally and unsuccessfully submitted to Napoleon III of France in 1855. The proposed vessel contained several revolutionary features, including a raft-like silhouette and a rotating turret. When he mailed his entry to President Abraham Lincoln, however, Navy engineers rejected the proposal and it never reached the President or his cabinet. Instead the board tapped two other models for the building project named New Ironside, and Galena.
Fortunately for the Union, Ericsson coincidently met Cornelius Bushnell, the designer of Galena. The Swedish-American’s proposal so impressed Bushnell that he interceded on Ericsson’s behalf with his personal friend Secretary Welles. The Secretary of the Navy realized that Ericsson’s craft was the only ironclad capable of completion in time to stop CSS Virginia, as the rebuilt Merrimack had been named. Bushnell continued to operate as advocate for the warship, successfully pitching the vessel to President Lincoln before joining Ericsson in front of the ironclad board that expressed lingering doubts about the vessel’s seaworthiness. The urgent need for a warship to counter Virginia, however, trumped those misgivings and the Navy granted Ericsson a contract dated 4 October 1861.
With Virginia nearing completion, the contract stipulated that if Ericsson’s vessel proved a failure he would be compelled to refund the government the cost of construction. Ericsson built the ship with the most advanced naval technology of the day, much of it conceived on his own drafting table. The ironclad included dozens of patentable inventions. She was propelled by one of Ericsson’s screw propellers and mounted two XI-inch Dahlgren guns in her armored revolving turret, the first of its kind. Below deck, the ship also boasted steam powered ventilation and heating systems and even underwater heads. Ericsson suggested the name Monitor characterizing his new warship as watching and intimidating the enemies of the United States.
Ericsson launched Monitor on 30 January 1862. She conducted trials in New York and her crew immediately identified problems with her steering and speed. The inventor righted the pressing deficiencies in spite of the derision of the press who remembered his past failures and dubbed the vessel “Ericsson’s Folly.” The Navy commissioned Monitor on 25 February 1862 at the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y., where she fit out for service. She departed New York on 6 March 1862 and set course to confront Virginia.
Monitor reached Hampton Roads on the night of 8-9 March 1862 in time to witness the destruction caused by Virginia earlier. Virginia had rammed and sunk the frigate Cumberland and run the frigate Congress aground before destroying her with heated shot, while screw frigates Roanoke and Minnesota ran aground attempting to enter the battle. After besting an entire Yankee squadron she retired to the safety of Confederate controlled Sewell’s Point, where she prepared to destroy the stranded Federal frigates at daybreak. Ericsson’s creation took position near Minnesota and waited for her adversary to emerge.
At dawn, Virginia steamed toward Minnesota to administer the coup de grace. Monitor emerged out of Minnesota’s shadow to intercept the Confederate ironclad. A Confederate officer on board CSS Patrick Henry, one of Virginia’s paddle wheel consorts, described the Union challenger as “an immense shingle floating on the water with a gigantic cheese box rising from its center; no sails, no wheels, no smokestack, no guns.” The unusual Federal vessel soon won the respect of friend and foe alike, however, fighting the Confederate ironclad to a standstill in an exhausting four-hour duel. With both warships damaged and running low on shot, Virginia again retired to Sewell’s Point after failing to break the Federal blockade.
Monitor’s performance electrified the North which dreamed up daring, war-winning exploits for their new ironclad champion. The Navy, however, was initially loathe to risk the technological marvel and frustrated Ericsson by deploying her conservatively. Monitor and Virginia played an elusive game of cat and mouse until the Confederates scuttled Virginia on 11 May 1862, thereby keeping her from capture by advancing Union Troops. Four days later Monitor’s armor proved superior to Galena at the battle of Drewry’s Bluff on the James River outside of Richmond. Heavy Confederate artillery fire from Fort Darling, situated on the bluff, pierced Galena’s armor but glanced off the smaller ironclad. The squadron withdrew, but Monitor proved she could withstand shore batteries.
Monitor’s success profoundly affected the nation, the world, and Ericsson’s fortunes. The North celebrated the previously hard-luck inventor. Congress passed a resolution of thanks and citizens and societies throughout the nation expressed their appreciation and admiration. Contracts poured in from the Navy. President Lincoln visited the ship in May as recognition of her achievement. Foreign governments quickly realized that Monitor rendered their storied wooden navies and early ironclads obsolete, and studied Ericsson’s inventions to modernize their own fleets. Ultimately, what Confederate guns had been unable to accomplish, an Atlantic storm did, and Monitor foundered on 30 December 1862, taking 16 souls with her. While her loss underscored the model’s dubious seaworthiness, the Navy was already committed to the shipbuilding revolution ushered in by Ericsson’s masterpiece.
The inventor designed two further classes of monitor s during the war, the Passaic and the Canonicus classes and two enormous monitors named Dictator and Puritan, each displacing over four times more than Monitor. Future models also housed larger guns and improved the vessels’ seaworthiness. Other shipbuilders fabricated monitors that incorporated Ericsson’s inventions. The Navy ordered sixty monitor type vessels during the war and those completed performed invaluable work in several naval theaters. Monitors served navies around the world well into the twentieth century.
Following the war, Ericsson continued to dream up inventions far ahead of their time. In the realm of naval technology, he conceived technologies capable of rendering his own ironclad monitors obsolete. He long expressed interest in self-propelled underwater torpedoes, and experimented with the technology starting 1866. In 1878, he constructed Destroyer, a small, fast fighting vessel designed to employ torpedoes as her primary armament. Destroyer presaged the torpedo boats employed by world navies throughout the decades straddling 1900. While Washington and London rejected the experimental vessel and Ericsson’s torpedoes, the Brazilian Navy purchased Destroyer following Ericsson’s death.
If Destroyer was the futuristic culmination of Ericsson’s life work in naval technology, his experiments with solar energy were his penultimate contributions to the mechanical applications of heat. Throughout the remainder of his life he invented and improved devices that concentrated heat from the sun to produce mechanical energy. He viewed solar energy as his gift to the world and consequently did not seek patents on his inventions. None of Ericsson’s solar engines achieved widespread use, but concepts he developed, like the solar energy collecting parabolic trough, proved important to the later development of practical solar power.
John Ericsson died in New York City on 8 March 1889, and the Swedish government requested that the U.S. return their native son to the land of his birth for burial and the Department of the Navy acceded. On 23 August 1890 Marine guards draped the Swedish captain’s coffin in Monitor’s battle flag. Rear Adm. John L.Worden, who had commanded the ironclad at the Battle of Hampton Roads, led a procession to Battery Park where the guard transferred the remains to the Navy. Two screws, descended from those Ericsson pioneered fifty years earlier, propelled Baltimore (Cruiser No. 3) on the final journey home. The warship carrying the great inventor was greeted by solemn crowds of adoring countrymen and Ericsson was buried in Filipstad, Värmland.
Disposition:
Loaned to the Coast Guard 6/7/1924 - 5/23/1932. Stricken 7/5/1934. Scrapped 1934.